This morning was cold and crisp, with the full moon peeking through the clouds to illuminate the path through the woods, in contrast to the chill mist and darkness of yesterday. I think I'm starting to adjust to the lack of light and I think that I am sleeping a lot better in the new bed. However, I've got a horrible feeling that the clocks will be going back soon and I'll lose what little light is left in the evenings.
Spooling back to sunday, we had some fun and games. The fun was making some chocolate chip flapjacks from a packet mix. The only problem was melting the chocolate to go on top - I put the chocolate in the microwave for a minute on defrost, being ultra cautious and all, but it didn't seem to have had any effect so I put it back in for another zap. There was a sizzling noise and a quite dramatic plume of chocolately smoke started rising from the dish. Ooops. Down to shop for another bar of chocolate and try again, this time with more success.
The games started with our first go at the Mechwarrior:Age of Destruction miniatures game, and I can exclusively report that it is ACEBEST. The rules were pretty straightforward, although the tactical implications of some of them were quite deep. My Copperhead Mangonel went toe to toe with Jamie's Jade Falcon mech and got quickly turned into radioactive slag by his long range missiles, leaving my support troops and tank looking very exposed. I think that sacrificing troops to tie up the mech and then outflanking with the fast tank to get a shot from behind might be a better strategy, so I think this is one we'll be going back to.
On the xbox front, I loaded up Vice City and quickly remembered why I had abandoned it six months ago. I'm stuck on one of the Malibu Club asset missions - The Driver - where you are in a race where the other person has a much better car than you and quickly leaves you standing. Just to make it even more frustrating you have the police chasing you as well, with just one touch sending you spinning out of control. Grrrr. I gave up after five or six attempts, and put Doom 3 on instead. It still made me scream, but after a while I got stuck on a difficult bit with three of the rocket launching skeleton doobries in front of me in a narrow corridor, and a zombie sneaking up behind, and I was reduced to the (not very) quicksave and retry method which spoilt the immersion somewhat. I much prefer games with seamless savepoints at regular intervals (as with Halo) and different ways of tackling tricky sections so that you don't get into the rut of repeating the same actions over and over again until you get it right.
Last night was fencing, with more fun with feints and taking advantage of the conceit of the parry. After a year of learning how to parry automatically, we now have to unlearn those instinctive reactions and instead defend with voids and footwork whilst attacking in the same time. The automatic defensive reaction is a good way to stay out of trouble, but it doesn't win you any fights though. The two newbies had a great time, even without picking up swords, particularly in the game of tag at the end of the session. They've got their first workshop on Saturday, so it will be fun watching them to see how they get on. The only drawback to the night was the gang of moronic kids who set fire to a box of fireworks in the carpark at the end of the road, causing several huge explosions and leaving a large bit of the waste ground on fire. The police eventually turned up an hour later, by which time the kids had long since scarpered.
I've been on a roll with CNPS recently. After being stuck looking for a 123 for about six weeks, I got all the way up to 130 last week and disallowed myself a partial spot of 131 that I wasn't sure about. The CNPS gods rewarded my honesty with a 131 in the car park when I took Alicia to the orthodontist yesterday, followed by a 132 on the way out. This morning I saw a 133 and a 134 in quick succession, as well as five more 131s for good measure. All hail the gods of CNPS.
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